Halloween 2004

Default Dictionary

Just a quick thought for you to consider:

In the act of spell checking a document I discovered that the default Microsoft dictionary does NOT know the correct spelling for Luddite but DOES know how to spell Ted Kaczynski's name.

Does this seem odd to anyone else?

Expansion

The family continues to grow, literally. As you can see from the picture above the new baby is developing nicely. Taleena was at the doctor’s office this morning and came home with a revised due date of late April based on measurements taken at the ultrasound done earlier this month. The doctor says all is going well with the pregnancy and set up another ultrasound for the first week in December. At that point we should find out the gender.

Helen’s growth has made her tall enough and strong enough that she was able to climb out of her crib so we converted it over to a toddler bed a couple of weeks ago. She seems to be adjusting well. However she has taken a page from her mother’s book so to speak. Several times since the change I have gone in to check on her before going to bed myself only to find she has slipped in to bed with a book and fallen asleep while reading it.

Harris is going to be tall. There is no getting around that. Just last week Taleena and I started to talk about moving him to a regular size twin bed since he had almost out “talled” his toddler bed. The very next day a friend of mine from the commute said that she had twin bunk beds she was looking to get rid of since she was moving and didn’t have room or need for them in the new place. So I borrowed my brother-in-law and his truck on Saturday and we brought the beds home. Thanks Yvonne for the beds! Your timing could not have been any better. Harry is a happy camper with his new Big Boy bed.

Three of my favorite things

About the author

So who am I? Well I would think that if you are reading this you will probably have some idea to start with. As I mentioned below I am writing to an audience that I know and who know me. I imagine that the readership might spread to people beyond that circle but if it does they can come to discover who I am a bit at a time.

I could give you the traditional Playboy bunny stats [I’m 5’10” with dark hair, like Mexican food and think aluminum bats are good for personal defense yet bad for baseball] but that boring. I would hope that as a reader you would either know that about me already or learn it as we go along. Some sort of datasheet would be boring.

So maybe you’re a buddy who wants to know what I think about the Mariners / Seahawks / Blazers (not Sonics, sorry); or you are my father who wants a little perspective on the wild world of technology from someone who is hip deep in it every day; or maybe you are my pastor and just want to check in from time to time and make sure things really are going okay; or maybe, just maybe you simply like my literary voices (I tend to use a few) and will read this blog simply for the fun of it. In the end I guess it doesn't really matter. For what ever reason you choose to read it I hope that I can edify, entertain or encourage you all.

Homeward Bound

What's in a name?

Why the title Life On A Pacific Island? Simple, that’s where I live; on an island in the Pacific.

Okay technically it is not really in the Pacific. Truth be told it’s in the Puget Sound (that’s basically Seattle for those who don’t know). But the sound feeds directly in to the ocean and since we are at the north end and just a few miles away by water to the Pacific I figure its close enough.

I considered other titles before settling on this one.

A Puget Home Companion, with the greatest of apologies to Garrison Keillor, was my first choice but I didn’t think I could mimic Keillor’s narrative voice well enough to do a title like that justice.

Next I considered Notes From A Small Island. I really liked that title and then I remembered why. It's the name of a book by Bill Bryson about some of his adventures in the UK. A great read by the way.

I thought about calling it Geek-A-Day but I knew that would never work. First of all I was sure that some other geek somewhere was probably already using it. Secondly Anything-A-Day automatically implies regular updates on far to frequent a basis for my liking. It’s just too much pressure to put on my self. It’s that same logic the keeps me out of a gym by they way.

In the end I settled on the title I did mainly because I liked it. The words roll of the tongue well enough and that makes it easy to tell people about. It hints at the paradise we tend to think of when we think of when somebody mentions Tahiti or Hawaii. And as you will find in the entries to come that while my island does not share the tropical beauty of those places in its' own way it still offers up some of the same idyllic life.